Friday, February 13, 2009

...there would be no athiests." So goes G.K. Chesterton's quip against those who refuse to believe in a creator God.

I ran across an interesting article in New Scientist magazine online which attempts to explain away belief in God by saying that our brains are hardwired to believe in him. Specifically, scientists have always viewed children's brains as revealing more of a default state of the human mind than adult brains, and children's brains are naturally more open and receptive to the concept of God. They explain:

...babies as young as five months make a distinction between inanimate objects and people. Shown a box moving in a stop-start way, babies show surprise. But a person moving in the same way elicits no surprise. To babies, objects ought to obey the laws of physics and move in a predictable way. People, on the other hand, have their own intentions and goals, and move however they choose.

[Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University,] says the two systems are autonomous, leaving us with two viewpoints on the world: one that deals with minds, and one that handles physical aspects of the world. He calls this innate assumption that mind and matter are distinct "common-sense dualism".

The body is for physical processes, like eating and moving, while the mind carries our consciousness in a separate - and separable - package. "We very naturally accept you can leave your body in a dream, or in astral projection or some sort of magic," Bloom says. "These are universal views."

So this is the default state of the mind: we process irrational phenomena in the natural world around us by referring to it as driven by supernatural powers. We do this without any training or formation; every culture in the history of the world comes to this conclusion.

Some say that any culture that experiences science above its own level of discovery naturally refer to it as magic (like gunpowder to the early North American aboriginals, for instance), and it's a fair point. Not everything that's seemingly driven by a supernatural force is truly so. But it is illogical to maintain that if A=B, then C, D, E, F, G, etc must also equal B.

Consider this point made in the same article: "...a belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body [is considered] to be the default setting of the human brain. Education and experience teach us to override it, but it never truly leaves us." To my knowledge, this is the only example in modern sociology when science would have us accept education and experience as a reason to override the brain's natural affectations. If one is born with homosexual inclinations, we are told it is unhealthy to suppress those as it's "who we are." If a man feels he has always been a woman trapped in a man's body, we are expected to offer state-funded surgery to release her. But if a grown man - especially one who embarks in a career in modern science - states that he has believed in God for as long as he can remember, he is mocked, ridiculed, and generally not taken seriously until he renounces his faith. There's a serious double-standard being applied.

I regard such militant athieism as a great danger to those who promote it. For if they are wrong in their blatant rejection of God, they stand to lose their very souls at the Last Judgement. But if I am wrong in my fanatical acceptance of God, then I merely rot in my grave if I'm wrong, and I lose nothing. I'm right, I gain every reward in Heaven. And if the athiest is right, his reward is maxed out at rotting in his grave.

Monday, February 02, 2009

It's the same answer as to how there can be a Heaven when there is still a Hell.

The (first) question is, how can I be a positive, uplifting, sane worker in the pro-life movement when our sole purpose is to lobby and pray for an end to a new holocaust on the unborn?

The answer, to both questions, is that God's glory is more glorious than the deepest, darkest, horrific evil we can imagine. And I, for one, can imagine some pretty messed-up evil. Even in the presence of such wickedness, we can bask in the presence of the beautiful face of Jesus and be filled with joy.

In short, God's good beats the devil's bad.

Because the devil didn't actually create anything; he stole God's good from us and corrupted it, then sold it back to us at the cost of our souls. But God's good beats the devil's bad, and when Jesus died, he untwisted the devil's work throughout all of history, present, and future, and made it possible to receive God's good directly from him again.

That's how I can be pro-life and happy. That's how I can acknowledge that the incredible light of an unborn baby is snuffed out every six minutes in my country, and yet still know that God is good..

What are the "Transformations" posts all about?

If you missed the original post, the idea behind my Transformations series is that I am committing to writing 100 posts on the topic of a specific thing I've done that day to try to become a better man.

Why "Convert Man"?

A key moment in my life was my decision to become Catholic. People like me are called "converts." Up to that point (1997) I had been a Bible-school educated Free Methodist with a light salting of the charismatic movement. I was, and still am, a born-gain Christian with a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ.

But why on earth would an evangelical Christian ever become Catholic?!? Isn't that going backwards?

This is a decision many of my friends and family could not understand. Ultimately, the reason was one of authority: who has it? As a Protestant, my answer was always "The Bible."

But I never stopped to ask myself if the Bible itself claims that it has final authority in all spiritual and moral matters of any importance.

It does not.

There are countless references in Scripture to there being sources of the Truth other than what is Written. I explained my reasoning (albeit sloppily) based on passages from my old NIV Bible way back in 1998, and later posted it to my blog. For a better explanation, check this out.

I was actually very surprised to discover this truth, and once I did the only logical place to turn was to the only place which claims to retain the oral teachings of the faith of old.

Since I "crossed the Tiber" I've had no regrets, despite the lost friendships and tense moments with my family. It's all worth it. See Matthew 13:44.